SCARCE Information

SCARCE stands for: School & Community Assistance for Recycling and Composting Education. The SCARCE mission is to: Inspire people, through education, to preserve & care for the Earth's natural resources, while working to build sustainable communities. Our Executor Director, Kay McKeen, started SCARCE in 1990 and she began teaching in DuPage County schools about recycling and other environmental issues and concerns. Kay was out teaching when she realized that many schools had countless textbooks just sitting in storage, taking up space. All the while, the information was becoming obsolete, it was costing the schools money for the books to sit in storage AND they were going to end up in the landfill! Therefore, in 1991 she started the Book Rescue with the idea of "rescuing" gently used books (text, reference and library) from going in the landfill, and instead putting them into the hands of those who need them. Today, SCARCE offers a myriad of educational programs for kindergartners through college students as well as teacher trainings, graduate credit workshops, and environmental certifications for non-profits and businesses alike. SCARCE organizes a wide variety of community events to educate the public about taking care of the earth's natural resources and recycling and has a presence at many DuPage County events year round. SCARCE depends on a small core staff and a wide variety of volunteers to keep it moving to support it's mission